The Netflix fantasy series Warrior Nun has been at the center of one of the most active and persistent save campaigns in recent memory. But according to the show’s creator, the show’s fate has finally been reversed.
Simon Barry took to Twitter late Tuesday to share the news with fans that Warrior Nun, which ran for two seasons before its cancellation in December and follows a young woman (Alba Baptista) who wakes up in a morgue and learns she’s part of an ancient order that fights demons, would get a third season.
“Today I’m happy to officially report that because of your combined voices, passion and amazing efforts – #WarriorNun will return and is going to be more EPIC than you could imagine,” he tweeted. “More details to come! SOON! Thank-you!! #SaveWarriorNun #WarriorNunSaved ❤️🎬”
Amy Berg, who has written on Warrior Nun, shared Barry’s tweet and confirmed the tweet wasn’t a hoax being pulled on fans.
“YOU DID THIS,” Berg added. “Congratulations to all #WarriorNun fans across the globe. Never have I seen a more organized community. The word ‘fandom’ doesn’t remotely cover it.”
Warrior Nun director Sarah Walker also praised fan efforts to bring the show back.
We reached out to Netflix for comment.
Barry has yet to elaborate on what any of those plans for Warrior Nun look like, such as how much of the show’s original cast is returning, whether the first two seasons will remain on Netflix or be licensed out, or any semblance of a release date. It’s also unclear what the rough timeline for season 3’s production would look like, or how much work needs to be done on season 3 scripts (or in what form they are in, if they exist yet) due to the ongoing writers’ strike and the possibility of actors striking looming in the distance.
But for many fans who’ve spent the past seven months trying to get Netflix to change its mind about canceling Warrior Nun, the details might not matter as much right now. Barry’s tweet gives them all they need to know for now: Warrior Nun is saved, and it’s largely thanks to them that it happened.
As of press time, the hashtag #WarriorNunSaved is trending on Twitter, with more than 92,000 tweets using it and counting.
And others were hopeful that what worked for Warrior Nun could eventually work for other series.
“Keep talking. keep yelling about it,” @reagomyeggoo tweeted. “keep being LOUD and OUTRAGEOUS and ANNOYING no matter what anyone says because at the end of the day, WE SAVED WARRIOR NUN. And i dont want to stop here. our sapphic shows DESERVE BETTER.”
Fan campaigns to save TV shows from cancellation (or to bring them back from the dead) have practically been part of TV shows since the medium’s beginning. But in recent years, in an overly crowded market, those campaigns have doubled as a way for fans to air their grievances with networks and streamers. They’re not just criticizing the move to cancel: They’re also criticizing how much the network or streamer dropped the ball in marketing the show, or how many diverse shows a particular network is dropping. And it’s especially prevalent with shows centering or catering to marginalized communities or shows that are canceled well before they’re given a chance to thrive.
Warrior Nun very much filled that mold. It was a genre-heavy show with a lesbian relationship—between lead characters Ava (Baptista) and Sister Beatrice (Kristina Tonteri-Young), which Barry had to hide from Netflix executives during filming, according to another writer on the show—at its core. It’s far from the first sapphic series Netflix canceled prematurely, something fans of those shows readily pointed out.
Netflix, once seen as a savior of canceled shows, is now canceling far more than it saves. And while Warrior Nun’s revival is great news for fans, it might become an increasingly rare occurrence. Instead of leaving canceled shows on streaming platforms so viewers can still enjoy and discover them, streamers like MAX, Disney+, Hulu, and Paramount+ now remove canceled shows from their platforms with no legal way for viewers to watch them.
It only took six months for shows like The Gordita Chronicles and Willow to disappear from MAX and Disney+, respectively, but a show like Grease: Rise of the Pink Ladies is being taken off Paramount+ just two months after it premiered and weeks after its final episode dropped (with the option for Paramount to shop it elsewhere). For many fans, the kind of seven-month fan campaign that Warrior Nun launched—which likely brought the show to the attention of people who wouldn’t have found it otherwise and lasted longer than some series’ entire streaming shelf-lives—might become a relic of the past.
Update 4:56pm CT June 28: The Daily Dot has confirmed that Netflix is not involved with the new iteration of Warrior Nun. We’ve also reached out to a representative for Barry for comment.
